YouTube Keeps Proving How Important Brands are to the Art of Content Creation

The latest ridiculous conflict involving Red Letter Media demonstrates that, if indie video is going to survive, sponsorship will be a big part of it.

The content created by Red Letter Media, in many ways, exemplifies the sort of independent success that can only be built and sustained on a platform like YouTube. Featuring a combination of dry, nihilistic humor and legitimately robust film criticism, it’s difficult to see their content achieving widespread mainstream success on a traditional distribution platform. Online, however, they have established themselves as something of an institution, and their impact is undeniable.

Film commentary is a large subsection of the YouTube ecosystem, and Red Letter is largely considered to stand near the top of that substantial mountain of creators. Other critics and commentators name check them and their work all the time, as a viewing suggestion or, often, as being an inspiration for their own work. Within the community, their work is highly respected.

I linger on RLM’s stature in the community because it’s important to understand the context of what’s recently occured. This isn’t the most massively successful channel on YouTube, but with just over 800K subscribers which belies the even more substantial reality of their true following, they’re exactly the sort of quality content creators that used to be YouTube’s lifeblood. Their flagship shows often reach over 1 million viewers.

That kind of fanbase should be enough to at least help sustain a channel on an ongoing basis, but that’s simply no longer the case. I won’t get in to the, at this point, more than well documented struggles of creators on the platform. Everyone knows by now that ad revenue is dropping across the board, and particularly so for any creator who doesn’t create “family friendly” content or doesn’t focus on the “ideal length” of video. That atmosphere has made it all the more important that creators have other ways to generate income. YouTube, though, seems pretty dead set on making that a painful process.

Red Letter Media recently posted a video. Said video was an announcement promoting the release of an audio commentary track for the 80s classic Robocop, in addition to the promotion of the channel’s most recent batch of merchandise. It was brief, it was funny, and it was far from unique, falling in line with all previous audio track and merch announcements in tone, length, and content.

YouTube took down the video for “deceptive practices.” The Red Letter Media team objected, reached out to YouTube, and eventually had the video approved for reupload.

YouTube took down the video again. Rinse, repeat. Though this time the RLM team decided the inevitable third go-around wasn’t worth the trouble, and decided not to bother again.

What’s really going on here? Well, it’s impossible to know, because YouTube sure isn’t saying anything. And, in that knowledge vacuum, people are coming to their own conclusions, namely that if a video exists to promote something that doesn’t live on YouTube, even merch, it’s against the rules. This further contributes to an environment wherein creators simply cannot generate reliable income from their content.

This only accentuates how important it is that brands and game developers participate in the space through direct relationships with creators and sponsorships. The audience on YouTube is real, and powerful, and still represents incredible value to anyone trying to get their product in front of the right people. This draws into stark clarity the fact that creators need sponsors as much as sponsors need them. YouTube is deliberately destroying the very artform they helped to create, and so other brands must seize the opportunity and help their own cause while doing their part to support creators who deserve it.

If the ecosystem of content creators on YouTube finally collapses, we’re going to be losing an untold multitude of independently created art, criticism, music, educational videos, and anything else that can be captured by a camera. Brands that participate in the space not only reap the very real benefits of reaching out to a receptive audience through trusted influencers, they also provide the very real public good of empowering content creators of all kinds. I’d say that’s a worthy investment.

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